


Allow to Simmer before Adding a Pinch of Salt

by misura



Category: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:07:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29739876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: The art of cooking and confusing one's enemies.





	Allow to Simmer before Adding a Pinch of Salt

_'You may need to set aside your scruples for this one,'_ Dara had murmured, putting a hand on his shoulder as if to offer comfort, _'I regret the necessity, but I see few other options.'_

It had pleased him to be thus underestimated by one currently his ally - though of course he might be meant to think so, to believe himself more capable and subtle than he was in truth.

_'Thank you,'_ he had said: polite, striving for distant. _'One way or another, I will take care of this.'_

She had smiled, and he had smiled, and he had summoned sherbets for them both.

Mandor had spent decades cultivating a reputation for culinary magic. It was an uncommon specialty, but he found it useful. Flattery and wit were common enough skills to find in the Courts; the ability to offer refreshments pleasing to even the most jaded palate was rarer.

Like any practitioners, he guarded his secrets jealously. He fought a few duels for the sake of precious volumes in the possession of people undeserving of them; he made a public spectacle of some unfortunate demon caught snooping in his library (he suspected the creature had mistaken its directions, which lent a pleasant complexity to the situation - eventually, its sender had approached him, offering abject apologies and pathetic promises of future favors, both of which Mandor had accepted with kindness and a return offer of dinner).

He courted allies over tea and uttered some atrocious threats over lunch - with a smile and a request to pass the butter, as befitted a gentleman.

He drove bargains with demons and other forces, some of which lacked both tongues and taste buds, other of which had multiple stomachs and appetites outlandish enough to give even one of the Courts pause.

"It perhaps comforts you to know that even in death, you may have your revenge, sir," Mandor told the corpse. Its face showed surprise.

The poison had been fast-acting, but one did not achieve success in politics by being slow-witted; there had been a moment of realization, of knowing. Of risk, perhaps, though Mandor knew his defenses well enough to have considered the immediate risk to his personal safety negligible.

Mandor sighed. "A blow to my reputation from which I would never recover."

The corpse offered no opinion on this. The art of necromancy might have aided in turning the conversation somewhat more two-sided, but Mandor held the sensible as well as popular view that the dead were best left as they were.

Besides, zombie servants, even those made from the reanimated corpses of one's enemies, had gone out of fashion some centuries ago and were unlikely to ever make a come-back. All to the good, Mandor felt: hardly any dishes were improved by the accidental addition of half-decomposed body parts.

"In my defense, may I point to the fact that I waited until dessert?"

The corpse's head lolled forwards. Mandor sipped his wine and decided to consider it a hopeful omen.

He had dallied with a daughter of a minor House, once, briefly. With careful guidance, he had brought her to point out to him that while his methods of disposing of those foolish enough to make themselves his enemies were many and varied, poison had never been among them.

_'My brother thinks it means you are an eccentric,'_ she had told him - hardly the first bit of information about her brother he had gotten from her, though he had not yet found a use for most of the data thus collected. _'He says you should be happier as a cook.'_

Mandor had not mentioned the years in Shadow he had spent holding that position, or one equivalent to it. Not all cultures considered the preparation of food to belong to the domain of domestic servants.

_'I had rather think of myself as an artist,'_ he had said. _'In the art of cooking as well as in other areas. Perhaps you would be kind enough to permit me to demonstrate?'_

She had giggled, and agreed, and they had parted ways civilly enough, though not so civil that she would feel any compunctions about sharing his 'weaknesses' with any who might ask.

The way down was long, but straight. Mandor looked after the corpse until it disappeared from view, and then a little longer, because the view pleased him.

Perhaps, he considered, he ought to select a suitable companion and return here one day for a picnic.


End file.
